Sukhothai
By Chris | November 6, 2008
We took a bus from Chiang Mai and arrived in Sukhothai at 7pm. Once again, the arrival time was later than anticipated. The day time offered some nice scenery to pass the time on the bus until night fall. As with everything in the north, it was very easy to find a room or anything else for that matter. There was a lady waiting for the bus to pull in to tout her Guest House to the foreign travelers. After reviewing her Guest House which happened to be in the Lonely Planet guide, we accepted her offer. Of course, she had a tuk tuk for us ready to whisk us away to her home.
The guest house was lovely. It was a basic room but the whole house was very nice with lots of wood and surrounded by plants. We took the lower priced room of $13CAN because we didn’t have time to use the terrace of the slightly more expensive room. We were only there one night.
The next morning, Chai the tuk tuk driver caught us before we left the house. His wife just happens to work at the guest house. They are always related. He made us an offer of his services for the day at about $35 Canadian. I am not sure if it was truly a good deal or if we were “taken”. We were probably taken but we had a wonderful time.
Chai brought his daughter, Fern, who is about 6 years old. They drove us out to see the ancient city, which is now a park. The ruins were great. The whole area was beautiful. There seemed to be a moat and many other man-made ponds. What was interesting is how beautiful the ancient city looked when it’s lower grounds were flooded as they were that day. The flooding brought out reflections everywhere. Also, I thought it to be very cool knowing I was photographing monuments of an ancient city that was the beginning of Thailand.
What really made our day was Chai and Fern. Chai would look after my camera bag while Fern gave us a tour of the ruins. She spoke very little English but we both learned from each other… ok, mostly Trish. I was busy taking pictures. Fern was absolutely adorable.
After a few wonderful hours we had lunch with Chai and Fern. Then Chai and Fern gave us a lift to the most beautiful airport in the world to catch a flight back to Bangkok. Chai had been telling us all about Sukhothai and the area the whole time.. He was very informative about the area and its people. It was a very rewarding experience.
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Chiang Mai
By Chris | November 6, 2008
We arrived in Chiang Mai at about 9am. The rail ride was 2 hours longer than expected, a total of 13 hours. This did not concern us but a group of Europeans had tour plans hinging on the train being on time. That is one thing that we have learned. Keep your plans loose and expect delays, they happen. That being said, we will leave for Sukhothai from Chiang Mai extra early. We have a flight booked there to return us to Bangkok in four days.
The rail ride was quite uneventful. I slept from 7:30pm till 5am-ish. There was nothing to see anyways since it was dark. I noticed that the train did not go all that fast, maybe 60-80kph and it had many stops along the way. When the sun did rise about 6am, we got to see the beautiful, lush countryside and the small rail stations.
Each rail station was a manicured oasis in the middle of the jungle. When the train pulled into one of these small stations, dogs and chickens would anxiously run to the train. I am assuming they were hoping for scraps of food. Though, I have yet to see anybody feed stray dogs anywhere.
Chiang Mai is a city that is just as busy as Bangkok but with more Thai authenticity. There are no malls or box stores here. Everything is bought at the markets around town. Also, many goods are delivered directly from street vendors. There are still a few Western businesses such as Starbucks, Burger King, and McDonalds to appease the Westerners. These stores are quite expensive when living on the Thai Baht. When the Canadian dollar is converted to Baht, a Starbucks coffee is not that much cheaper than back home. The real money savings is eating at the real Thai food outlets. You can eat a good size lunch for $2 Canadian. A hotel restaurant may cost $8-$10. One thing is for sure; Thais have incredible food and service. I think all people in the service industry from Canada should come to Asia to learn how it’s done before they can work at home.
We have done the un-thinkable. We rented motor scooters to get around Chiang Mai. I was totally intimidated by the traffic and how crazy it is but I have grown used to it. All you need to know is keep on the left, make wide right turns and the rest is “anything goes!” I took everything I know about riding a motorcycle and threw it out the window. Lane splitting back home is considered very dangerous and rarely seen. Here, lane splitting is common practice! It really is a blast bootin’ around a city in this manner. Besides, we needed to get to the Women’s Prison somehow!
Why did we go the Women’s Prison? Well, we thought a Thai massage would be good. Yes, we got a massage in a women’s prison! It sounds quite dirty but it was very nice. Apparently, a large portion of the money earned by the prisoners is held for them upon their release. Then I heard from a local that “who knows” how much they really get. Trish and I both had a foot massage which should have been called, “The foot, leg, hand, arm, head, and neck massage”. While we were being massaged, there was an older Japanese gentleman having the full massage. He was snoring away while the massuesse worked on him.
I could go on much longer about Chiang Mai but I will wrap it up with an observation. The people were amazing. They had little material possessions but they always had a smile on their face. They would help you anyway they could. They had monetary motivation on the surface but if you got to know them on a personal level, yes, they were genuine. The people in the north have been the highlight of the trip so far. We’ll DEFINITELY be back!
PS. Internet here is painfully slow. I couldnt upload pics this time.
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David DuChemin
By Chris | October 27, 2008
David DuChemin’s link on lower right of this page. I put his link there because I use him as a source of inspiration. I am also a regular reader of his blog. David is a “National Geographic” calibre of travel photographer. Plain and simple, his images just make your jaw drop. David’s photographs are stunning images of beauty while hitting with a slug of emotion. David likes people and it shows in his photography. He is also a humanitarian making a small bit of difference in this sometimes nasty world. Go visit him and see the world and the interesting people in it!
By the way, this post was scheduled in case I dont’ have time to write or lack of internet connection on Monday. Monday, I will be in Bangkok heading out on a train to Chang Mai in the evening.
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One Night in Bangkok
By Chris | October 26, 2008
One night in Bangkok!.. so the song goes. It kinda rings true for us; we’re in Bangkok for one night at this time. We need to recover a little from our twenty hours of travel. After “one night in Bangkok”, we do a half -day city tour with a guide then around dinnertime we’ll be on a train to Chiang Mai. That will be a 12 hour night trip. We’re exhausted already!
Anyways, I gotta tell you about our trip so far. First of all, I think the airline Cathay Pacific has a cloning farm located somewhere in the orient. I believe this because all of their Stewardes… I mean, Flight Attendants all look the same! They all are the perfect asian human specimen of the female gender. The ladies are young, attractive, and all have the same hair-do! I swear they MUST be cloning them.
Our travel here was 15 hours from Vancouver to Hong Kong. It’s the longest I’ve ever been on an airplane. We made sure we had some stretches to avoid “Deep Vein Thrombosis”. After that long haul, we had a 2 hour or so lay-over in Hong Kong. I must say that airport is massive compared to the few other airports that I have seen so far in my life. From Hong Kong, the connector flight was just over two hours. I gotta say, Cathay Pacific Flight Attendant clone farm must have had a bumper crop. The Flight Attendant on the second flight looked as ravishing as the first. This just re-affirms my belief in the secret clone farm hidden somewhere in the orient.
So, we finally arrive in Bangkok tired as all heck. Leo, our guide met us at the airport and had a car ready for us. However, we were stimulated with sensory overload. The traffic from the airport wasn’t too bad but when we got close to our hotel, which is located in the shopping district, we noticed the madness! It seems that cars honk when they pass another. Now imagine many vehicles passing each other. Chaos!
Our guide, Leo checked us into the hotel and we went over tomorrow’s arrangements. After settling into our room, we went on a little excursion to a mall across the street from our room. The mall is unusual by what we are used to. It is a “tall mall”. I mean, it’s built in an office tower. It has many floors and escalators. The designers were smart enough to add a parking level to each shopping level. We wa wandered around that mall for a bit and grabbed some dinner. The mall was interesting enough but not as interesting as the insane driving.
The drivers and traffic in this city are INSANE! There are many motorcycles and they use every inch they can find. They bring a new definition to the term “lane splitting”. I can’t really describe it any other way than “barely organized chaos”. Of course, let’s not forget the cars using the on-coming cars’ lane! I consider myself a good driver. I have an impeccable driving record but would I drive here?.. HELL NO!
Another interesting observation about Bangkok is how apparent that it is a Buddhist country. There are shrines on almost every street corner. The people will do what I call a “drive-by prayer”. People will do a quick pray as they walk by. I even saw a woman riding her bicycle by a shrine. She prayed as she rode by.
Today, we had our city tour of Bangkok. We seen several temples most of which I forget the names. They laying Buddha is one that sticks out. That Buddha was HUGE plus it was covered in gold flake. The temples are amazing. They are so colourful and filled with detail. Interior walls are filled with decoration. There is not a square inch that is not painted, carved, or tiled in some way.
We will be travelling to Chiang Mai later in the afternoon by train. It’s an 11 hour ride. We will be in Chiang Mai in the early morning. It’s hard to say when I can get internet access again. There are several hotspots in Chiang Mai that we could access from.
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Thailand… here we come!
By Chris | October 23, 2008
I am getting a feeling of mixed emotion about going to Thailand tomorrow night. Nerves vs. excitement! We are stoked for the trip! We are currently taking care of last minute details. Anyways, just letting you all know that I will be blogging with photo’s as much as I can. We will be visiting some smaller towns and villages so we don’t expect to have Internet access 100% of the time.
Semi-good news is that I have Lightroom 2 running on the little Netbook. However, as expected, it is painfully slow. I will not do much photo editing “on-the-fly” other than a few for illustrating a blog post. The Netbook’s main duty will be for photo storage and communication. That means, I will have a whole pile of photo edits to do when I get back… UGH! If the “Financial Crisis” allows us, our next trip will probably be to Cuba next year. If so, I will budget for a 13″ Mac Book. They are compact yet powerful.
The next time I post here, I will be in Bangkok!
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